A Walk with Jane Austen

by Lori Smith

  Margaret and I looked through all the pictures from my digital camera on her TV. I told her about Jack and asked, “What do you think it means that he said we will get together when I get home?” and she said, “Well, it means he wants to see you, I suppose.”

  Her thinking is very straightforward, and mine is all jumbled. And I would like answers, thank you very much.

  I am interminably weak. I keep thinking that I will just stop thinking about him, but the frequency with which I think that alone is sign enough of how little success I'm having.

  We put together a merry party for Box Hill this morning—me and Margaret and her daughter Christine and her granddaughter Lucy. Unfortunately, in the tradition of Box Hill parties, it was not entirely a laughing affair. Box Hill is the setting for the picnic scene in Emma. Jane probably came to visit when she was staying with her cousins in Great Bookham. Today is cool with clouds, but you could still see enough of the view to admire it.

  We walked around a bit—there are hiking trails enough to stay for a whole afternoon, but I was exhausted. Lucy wasn't feeling well, and Margaret was very sad about something going on in the family. So none of us was in the mood to be merry. We had coffee and then ate lunch at the picnic tables at the top—bacon and cheese muffins. (Everything is better when you eat it outside, especially on a day like this that feels almost like fall.) Lucy had part of a tuna sandwich with cucumber and then threw up, and I spent the ride home alternately sleeping and attempting to be sympathetic without being so sympathetic that I began to share her symptoms. (But really, the thought of cucumbers and tuna together is enough to make me sick.)

  Emmas picnic at Box Hill, of course, is disastrous. Frank Churchill is there, secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax but flirting outrageously with Emma. Together Frank and Emma manage to be rude to nearly everyone, but the final straw comes when they are trying to find some kind of entertainment. Frank declares that Emma declares that everyone must provide something to entertain the group—“either one thing very clever…or two things moderately clever; or three things very dull indeed.”1

  Sweet, nervous Miss Bates replies, “I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I? Do not you think I shall?”2

  Emma cuts her off: “Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to number—only three at once.” Public humiliation ensues for poor Miss Bates.3

  Others in the party are content to flatter Emma for her perfections, but dear Knightley (as the obnoxious Mrs. Elton calls him) simply cannot let this go. Walking Emma to her carriage, he scolds her the way only a dear friend can:

  Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do; a privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it. I cannot see you acting wrong without a remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation? Emma, I had not thought it possible…. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour—to have you now, in thoughtless spirits and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her—and before her niece, too—and before others, many of whom (certainly some) would be entirely guided by your treatment of her. This is not pleasant to you, Emma—and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will—I will tell you truths while I can.4

  Emma has developed character faults natural to being spoiled and the center of everyone's attention. She has grown accustomed to thinking very well of herself, but with this she is broken, and all of Mr. Knightleys other gentle remonstrances—that she should be kinder to Jane Fairfax, that she should not have led Mr. Elton on so, that she should not be giving Harriet Smith grand ideas about herself—begin to ring true. She has been pretty and well situated, only sometimes kind, and not always good, and now she knows and feels it deeply.

  Ultimately, this confrontation plays a large part in Emmas realizing her love for Mr. Knightley (that and Harriet's determination to have him). She mends her ways, determines to be kinder, begins to realize she is not entirely deserving of all the praise she receives. And discovers that she loves him.

  The pattern is repeated in almost all of Austens books—not exactly, but in some way each book is about a failing, the characters are confronted with their own faults, and for Austen the greatest good is being willing to recognize these faults and change. I can't help but wonder— and I imagine this is true—if she didn't consider herself guilty of each of the failings she created within her characters, particularly Emmas harsh wit and inability to genuinely love some of those in her circle. Jane wrote to Cassandra of neighborhood friends with a sarcasm that could be particularly harsh. “Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child…” she writes, “oweing to a fright.—I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.”5 And later, “I respect Mrs. Chamberlayne for doing her hair well, but cannot feel a more tender sentiment.—Miss Langley is like any other short girl with a broad nose & wide mouth, fashionable dress, & exposed bosom.”6 All that to say, I think she understood Emmas failings.

  Jane saw these progressions happening in the context of relationship. It was sisters, lovers, dear friends who would help work out the rough patches in one's character.

  These are the kinds of relationships I crave and one of my highest priorities in a man, to find someone willing to lovingly correct me, willing like Mr. Knightley to say the difficult things without necessarily enjoying saying them. Someone both kind and strong. Perhaps this is one element of every good relationship; perhaps it is not as rare as I imagine.

  I am afraid, though, that I will have to find someone with more emotional depth than Emma's dear Mr. Knightley.

  Dom Nicholas loves Emma. He said it is about being truly elegant. He said there was a quote about Mrs. Elton being “as elegant as lace and pearls could make her.”7 I love that. Mrs. Elton, I'm sure, had horrible taste in lace and pearls anyway, so I imagine she was completely hopeless.

  Eleven

  The British Library

  How horrible it is to have so many people killed!

  — JANE AUSTEN IN A LETTER TO CASSANDRA

  By London, my adventure had become mundane; I was growing weary of stalking Jane. I was determined not to be afraid, but the ride down the escalator to the Tube at Charing Cross station gave me plenty of time to consider how deep into the earth I was going, and how difficult it might be to get out, and how horrible it would be if something happened.

  Margaret tried to talk me out of this, thinking that since terrorists walked on and blew up multiple trains during rush hour two weeks ago, perhaps the Tube should be avoided. She was also determined to go with me. “Now, if we get off here we can catch a double-decker bus. We would have to walk across the street, but it's not very far. And that would take us right to… Where is the library again? Do you know the address? Of course, we could just take a cab. It wouldn't cost that much, I suppose.”

  Its sweet really, her wanting to take care of me. She felt responsible for me, even though I am thirty-three. I was determined to talk her out of it though—not that my decision really came easily. Everyone said before I left, “At least it happened just before your trip. They never strike in the same place twice.” And then there was Andrew at the monastery, his wonderful voice telling me to be careful, that there had been another incident. So I was fully aware that I could get on the Tube only to have the whole thing explode and be blown to bits or—perhaps worse—be stuck in a tunnel full of smoke with no way to get out, waiting for some kind of end or some kind of rescue, unsure which it would be. Still I thought it unlikely. I refused to be perpetually afraid. And Margaret, who is claustrophobic and hates the city anyway and would be bored to death by the things I'm seeing, stayed home where she will be much more comfortable.

  A guy with a thick down coat (it's hardly that cold) and a ba
ckpack gets on, so in the name of self-preservation I get on a different car, holding my breath nearly the whole time, thinking how the world has gone awry.

  The British Library sounds dull enough, but Jane's writing desk and a manuscript chapter from Persuasion are on display, so I thought I might as well stop by.

  Now I can hardly walk straight, all tingly and in awe, as though my breath has been taken away. I thought perhaps I might throw up, like a silly little romantic heroine upon walking into a ballroom and seeing her long-lost love.

  I went to the information desk, asked where the Austen material was, and began to think, Of course, they have far more than just J. A. material. When I walked into the display room—the Sir John Ritblat Gallery—I began to get a sense of how much I had underestimated the library. I had to walk past the music case to get to the literature—I skipped the Beatles stuff and stumbled on to find original scores, quickly and greedily realizing that they were Beethovens Ninth,Handel's Messiah,Bach's Well-Tempered CUvier,and something from Mozart.

  To be so close—on the other side of thick glass, looking through dim light—to these manuscripts that they actually touched, that they wrote. I determined to stand there until I had them memorized.

  Beethoven's is a huge thick book done by one of his copyists; it includes Beethoven's corrections, but I can't tell which notes are his. Bach's is a single sheet of music, and the notes themselves are musical, almost joyful—neat, full round notes with squiggly lines connecting them. They have Messiah open to the “Hallelujah Chorus,” and Handel is gloriously messy. Jane said once, half-joking to Cassandra, “An artist cannot do anything slovenly.”1 But sometimes it's too difficult to be neat and create. Handel's writing is large and scrawled, with the words not entirely written out: “And he shall reign for ever and eve… Alleluia Alleluia.” I suppose Jane would have known all these composers. Her great-great-uncle, the Duke of Chandos, was actually one of Handel's patrons.2

  In the literature case is a copy of Beowulf from the eleventh century—the only surviving manuscript—individual disintegrating pages with a brown script I cannot read glued into a big book. There's romance literature from Italy, writing from Alexander Pope. Charlotte Bronte's notebook with Jane Eyre—tiny perfect writing with tons of space in between the lines, open to the part where Rochester proposes. Next to Brontë, Austen. Her small script with lines crossed through and words corrected looks like a mess compared to Brontë. Then there is Lewis Carroll, the original Alices Adventures Underground,which he illustrated himself and later became Alice in Wonderland. An early edition of Dickens, a typewritten page of Virginia Woolf with her husband's notes.

  In the middle of the room is a lease that Shakespeare may or may not have actually signed. A ship's log has an account of Nelsons death from a French musket shot on the deck of the Victory. Nelson actually thought very highly of Jane's brother Frank, who was then captain of the Canopus. Frank just missed the Battle of Trafalgar, where Nelson died. He regretted it all his life. He had been assigned to protect a convoy to Cartagena and turned back as soon as he got word of the enemy fleet leaving Cadiz, but by the time he got back everything was over.3Perhaps his life would have been completely different had he been there. He had survived battles enough—regular routs where he captured or destroyed multiple ships that should have completely overpowered him within shooting distance from cliff-side batteries4—but perhaps he would not have been so lucky at Trafalgar. As it was, he was safely and regrettably away, and Nelson was lost.

  I felt as though I had walked into a sacred space, and everywhere I turned there was something new to inspire awe. I wondered about all of these people, the people whose work is here. Aside from genius, and a great gift, I think what they must have in common is a great energy for life, a not holding back. They kept going—whether it was art, or science, or music, or all of the above, they were determined to seek things out, to create. And to go in their given direction. (Had Jane attempted to write Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier—or even Brontes Jane Eyre—she would have failed miserably. She knew what her realm was, what she called her “little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour.”5I could feel their energy. Perhaps the gift inside them could not be silenced. Perhaps they could not help it. Madeleine L'Engle says you know you are a writer if you can t help but write, if you feel like you must.6 I feel like I must. I want to obey that calling. I'm not a genius. I would be content simply to do some good work. It's possible to stifle things like this from laziness, or to choke them with fear or even misplaced humility. But when you can be brave, what a joy to have a chance to discover and create. That's how I felt wandering through all this greatness.

  I found a speech written by Queen Elizabeth I on the subject of her proposed marriage. It is a mess—large writing, words and sentences crossed out, things written in the margins, sideways, so that the page is all filled up. And I turned around to see the actual Magna Carta. Unbelievable. I stared almost unseeing at a page from da Vinci's notebook until my mesmerized brain was absolutely full.

  Then, as if to make everything else seem unimportant, I wandered over to King's Cross to have a look at Harry Potter's dear Platform 9¾.

  Twelve

  On Beauty

  Catherine hoped at least to pass uncensured through

  the crowd. As for admiration, it was always very

  welcome when it came, but she did not depend on it.

  —NORTHANGER ABBEY

  Jane was not beautiful. I think this is one of the reasons I like her, or the idea of her. Actually, really, we don't know what she looked like. The only sure likeness we have of her face is a little pencil and watercolor drawing her sister did that looks like just the work of an afternoon and that no one thought looked especially like her at the time. The proportions seem off—the shoulders slope, the eyes and mouth and shape of the head and neck are not quite right—yet nearly every image we have of her has been adapted somehow from this. They probably never imagined it would make it outside their little family circle. And now it sits in a little case in the National Portrait Gallery in London, the light going off and on from time to time to protect it. It is softer and fainter than I imagined it would be.

  Jane's neighbors thought she was “a very pretty girl,”1 but her niece Anna, who grew to be very close to her aunt in spite of their seventeen On Beauty125

  years difference, presents a slightly harsher view. She talks of her “Figure tall & slight…her quick firm step,” her “clear &c healthy” complexion, “the fine naturally curling hair, neither light nor dark; the bright hazel eyes to match, & the rather small but well shaped nose.” Which all sounds very nice. Then Anna adds: “One hardly understands how with all these advantages she could yet fail of being a decidedly handsome woman.”2

  I've often felt that way myself—there are parts that should add up to a good-looking whole but don't entirely. Tall and thin, with lovely eyes, a decent complexion (not as much of that smooth tan as I would like to have gotten from my Norwegian forebears, but still decent), thickish brown hair that looks good when I do something with it, although that's not very often, and cheeks that are “a little too full,”3which is how another family acquaintance described Jane. My ears are definitely crooked, and there are moments when I look in the mirror and think the jowls are beginning. I've often thought that if there is beauty here, it is with a kind of weirdness underlying it—like the disproportions of Cassandra's sketch—that throws everything off.

  This is one difference between my brother and me—he seems entirely assured of his own good looks, and I am always questioning mine. I think this must be one of the thousands of settings God tweaks when we are being made—the tendency to confidence or to doubt. On most anything, my brother's bent is to be completely sure of himself; mine is to question.

  Our world prizes physical beauty like nothing else. As a woman, to attain perfection—that antithetical starved yet voluptuous look that is
the current American fashion—is the highest good. Other normal sorts of bodies—other normal sorts of people—are not as valuable. And you can tell yourself hundreds of times that this is all ridiculous, which it is, but it creates a gnawing self-doubt that is ready to welcome you anytime you start to feel weird.

  We all have our insecurities. Mine, aside from my amazing disappearing chin, is my stomach, which I would actually prefer to disappear entirely. My friends think its ridiculous. I try to tell them that I am actually a fat little skinny girl, and they don't believe me (until one of them saw me in a bathing suit and said, “I can see why you say that.”) Actually, I have been surreptitiously watching at Pilâtes classes and such, and I'm beginning to think that “fat little skinny girl” is an entirely normal body type. There are thousands of us, skinny girls that look ridiculous in bikinis.

  The thing is, it's easy to hide this particular fault with a good outfit, a series of carefully constructed optical illusions. But it is still there, in my mind, this weird little body, my skinny little frame with the stomach of a much larger woman, and I know it even when other people don't.

  I don't believe in plastic surgery. For one thing, I think it's far easier to learn to be content with your body than to have someone knock you out, cut you open, and suck things out or stuff foreign objects inside you. Maybe I've got that wrong. Maybe surgery really is easier than contentment. But I think contentment is healthier and more admirable and in some way much more attractive. So I'm trying not to be ridiculous, trying to be content with a little beauty, choosing to believe that my stomach looks big only because the rest of me is so very small.